The Blessing Way
by RedMyst
Summary: While struggling to regain the memories of his past, Tommy comes face-to-face with a dangerous otherworldly force.
1. Chapter 1

Title: The Blessing Way

Author: RedMyst

Rating: M – Nudity/Language/Violence

Spoilers: MMPR and MMPR: DT, MMPR: ITPOTS, MMPR: SPD, MMPR: TF

Summary: After a dramatic encounter with an otherworldly force, Tommy finds himself struggling to solve the mysteries of his family's past, and stay one step ahead of a supernatural killer.

Disclaimer: I don't own them.

Author's Note: We're getting close to the final mile of this installment of the trilogy. This series' title is a nod to the first episode of the third season of "The X-Files". We chose that title and reference for a reason, but you'll just have to wait until we post it to see why. In the meantime, we have some character news. Originally, my Beta and I planned to kill off One, (Marc Alaimo), at the end of this series, but we're having too much fun writing him. So, we're going to keep him around to become the main antagonist in MMPR: AEON. In the meantime, we learn Erica's real first name, and get some insight. Also, feed the feedback monster.

_1984…_

_My people believe that something lives only so long as someone remembers it. Over time, we have learned to trust memory over history, instinct over instruction, and intuition over information. Not everything in this world is as it appears. It is a truth we have known, far longer than the White man, and have accepted. We also know that just as the Earth has its secrets, the same is true of the Sky. Our people had just mastered fire, when the black-faced ones came from the stars. Without a place to call their own, they settled underground, and we called them the Ant People._

_We had no reason to fear them. They hunted, grew crops, and tamed lands where no man dared tread. They taught us stories of the worlds they had settled, and we gifted them with corn and dances. In time, they trusted us with their secrets. To survive, they had learned the ways of Coyote, the trickster, and could transform into a wolf, or bear, or bird. Gifted by the Creator with long life, they became guardians with unfathomable wisdom._

_They feared nothing, or so we thought._

_Naïve, we wondered what could frighten a people who had touched the Sky? Witnessed the birth of stars, and the passage of dying suns? We soon learned the answer, and it forever changed our concept of 'good' and 'evil'. To the White man, the Ant People and the Skinwalker is just a story – "Indian superstition" – but we have learned that stories have a way of coming true. The Ant People feared something, a creature that stole their bodies, and remade them into monstrosities without mind or spirit. To stop it, their ancestors sacrificed themselves to save the younger worlds, but the evil survived, and began hunting the Ant People._

_Soon, it came here._

_The first time we – the Navajo – with the Ute, Hopi, and Apache drove the evil from the land. Again and again, it would come, each time stronger with even greater hunger. In our darkest hour the Creator – seeing the struggle of the people – sent a powerful guardian – the hand. In one day, it struck down the evil. With no means to hide itself, stripped naked and forever cursed to wear the skins of others, we named it the Skinwalker, and learned to fear it._

_Without mind or spirit, they use their powers to control their victims, make them hurt themselves, and even end their lives. They prey on men by making them sick, commit murders, rob graves, and defile the dead. Greedy, to achieve their full power, they must kill a sibling or close relative to be initiated, regardless of whether their heart desires to be Skinwalker or not._

_To keep them from ever taking a world, the hand gathered the strongest of the people – man and sky – and created from them a race of beings that could resist the Skinwalker. Made from the stars, their hair was as white as the moon, and their eyes the color of turquoise. From them, we learned of the Skinwalker, and by our laws can be killed at will. Such an act, when committed against one turned by force, is considered mercy for it frees their mind and spirit from the terror of the Skinwalker._

_To the people I protect, this is our memory, and I a part of it. I appear, as my ancestors appeared, as a Navajo, but that is a lie. I appear as a woman, a police officer, but that is a lie too. When I look in the mirror, I see a Shaa'drick, and one with eyes bluer than the desert sky. Contacts conceal me, as I walk amongst the people, but I see more than I could ever say. There are those who know of me, of the origins that even I question, and know that the time will come where we will either drive the evil from this world, or succumb to it._

_I fear for you my children. David, Emily, Thomas. Could you know your mother? Could you know her heart? Look in the mirror, I am there. Look in your heart, I am there. Look at what your eyes do not see, and wisdom will greet you. Even in times of great fear, trust that there is good, and that the Creator is with you. _

_Five victims all killed in the same manner. Three months, enough time to create everything necessary for the evil to return. Everything you need, everything they fear is here. I, unlike you, have gotten too close, I will not survive this case, but I must continue. My path is clear, and I have no regrets._

_Please remember me, so that I may live._

_Det. Nancy Red Eagle_

…Special Agent Zack Taylor carefully folded the yellowed piece of paper, and sat down heavily in his chair. Warm afternoon sunlight filtered through the windows of his office at the bureau, casting shadows around the large box on his desk. Inside were dozens of musty stained files and old photographs. Carefully preserved in saran wrap, and surrounded by moth balls to keep out mice and insects. Whoever sent him the box had originally intended it for Tommy and Erica, but someone had intercepted it, and instead routed it to him. Swallowing thickly, the FBI agent re-read the letter, and then took a deep breath as the date sank in.

On his desk were the missing files from 1984.


	2. Chapter 2

Title: The Blessing Way

Author: RedMyst

Rating: M – Nudity/Language/Violence

Spoilers: MMPR and MMPR: DT, MMPR: ITPOTS, MMPR: THW

Summary: While struggling to regain the memories of his past, Tommy comes face-to-face with a dangerous otherworldly force.

Disclaimer: I don't own them.

Author's Note: Welcome to the third and final virtual season. If you are new to this story, you're missing out on some valuable background info. To get caught up, read the previous two installments here on –

In the Path of the Skinwalker (ITPOTS)

The Hidden World (THW)

In short, this is a virtual season of an alternate PR universe. All the characters are there, my Beta and I try to stay in canon with the show, but we updated it in the same way the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series were updated in the 80s for a more mature audience. Each story is done in three installments of virtual seasons that run anywhere from 8 – 13 'episodes' in length. In the next series, we'll be moving ahead 29 years for MMPR: AEON, and introducing some new characters. Since we write this series like a virtual season, we use actual actors whom – in our fertile imaginations – would play the character if this were a real season.

Special Appearances By:

Jennifer Blanc-Biehn as Erica Marie Oliver

Remember, feed the feedback monster, it makes the authors write faster.

_September 5__th__, 2011_

"Erica!"

Jason Lee Scott crashed through dense underbrush, as he raced towards the bluff. Adrenaline and panic pushing him forward, as he stumbled over fallen branches, and tangled mats of grass. Erica Marie Oliver had run afoul of something in the forest, and was being attacked. He knew, because twenty minutes ago, while herding his tiny band of cattle into one of the barns, she had reached out to him with her mind. It was an intimate form of contact, called a Link. Shaa'drick who engaged in sexual relationships, or had children, formed a telepathic bond with their mates and offspring. It allowed them to see through the recipient's eyes, and vice versa. Unbeknownst to the other rangers, Jason and Erica were having an affair, and had been for some time.

2000 was a bad year for everyone. Tommy was in a near-fatal crash at Daytona, his older brother David died in a rodeo accident, and Trini was killed in a head-on collision with a drunk driver. Losing the first yellow ranger nearly broke Jason, and had pushed Kimberly into a devastating depression. Trini was the only other woman Jason had loved, besides the original pink ranger. Losing her left him numb, unable to think or feel. Aiding Tommy with his recovery kept them going, it gave Jason something to put his mind around, and Kim a sense of purpose.

One night, there was Erica.

At first, he was ashamed. Tommy was his best friend, his _bro_, and it was an unspoken rule that a bro didn't sleep with his bro's sister. Jason had done that, and then he did it again, and again for almost a year before she broke it off. If her brother ever found out, it would destroy their relationship, and swore that whatever it was had cleared their systems.

That was eleven years ago.

Now, he was running through the woods with that same desperate feeling he had that day he drove to the hospital after he got the call about Trini. Even before he arrived, he knew his fiancé was gone, and as he raced through the darkness there was a knowing. A presence, deep in the back of his mind, told him gently that Erica had been taken. It was familiar as it was foreign, and it spurned him on.

"_She has to be there…!"_

When he last "saw" her, the chanteuse was walking through the woods, smoking, and brooding about her younger brother. Tommy was experiencing complications from the procedure used to remove the parasite from the back of his skull. The process had left him in a severely weakened state, and at one point Jason had to put him on life support. With machines running his biological processes, his metabolism had slowed into a regenerative cycle. It gave his body a chance to heal, and he spent several days in the ICU in a coma.

Now that he was awake, it was obvious that the neural blocks controlling his memory were starting to degrade. Ever since his release Tommy had refused to eat. Earlier that evening, after an argument with Erica, he admitted that his mouth felt and tasted like it was full of blood. Other times, he got the sensation that it was packed with a bland gel. Both experiences were tied to his Infection, and subsequent treatment. If it persisted, Jason would have to use an NG tube.

The procedure wasn't pleasant, and it would set him back even further. Tommy was already in bad shape, physically and mentally. To make matters worse, the Inner Circle was on the move. Earlier, they had attempted to assassinate Angela Richards. The former detective had worked with his biological mother on the case in 1984, and was one of the few surviving members of the original task force. Currently, she was ten miles underground in critical condition with two missing legs. A Skinwalker had done that. Never mind that the target was a three-hundred year old Shaa'drick, with a Spark powerful enough to kill everything in a thirty-foot radius. The damned thing had nearly eaten her alive, and it was only a matter of time before things came to a head.

Crashing through the woods, Jason paused as he listened for the sounds of a struggle. Even when she had the upper hand, Erica was a screamer. The cries of a Shaa'drick female were unmistakable, yet there was nothing but cold silence. Swearing, Jason forced himself to think. The last thing he had seen was the red orbs, and then a series of jumbled images. Ignoring the raw fear gnawing at the inside of his gut, he ran down an old trail, and burst into a frosted clearing. The world was pitch-black out, save the pale light of the three-quarter moon. In the background, he could hear the cows mooing, and the rat-a-tat-tat of the younger rangers' paintball guns. If the flying menaces were out there, he would see their distinct reddish-orange glow, or hear the electronic hum they emitted. Instead, he was greeted by darkness and silence. Surveying the desolate landscape, it suddenly struck him how isolated and alone he was.

"_Son-of-a-bitch!"_

In the heat of the moment, Jason had taken off without first alerting the others. It was a bad call. Reacting instead of thinking, he'd run straight into an unknown and potentially hostile situation. Unfortunately, he was too far out to turn back now. Wishing he still had a wrist communicator, the physician tried to reorient himself using the ridge. The barrier formed a near-perfect semi-circle around the 480-acre property, which meant if the house was behind him, he was on the north side of the ranch near the creek. The drones had corralled Erica near a cluster of snow cedars. Scanning the terrain, he spotted the stand of trees, and raced towards them.

Hoping against hope, he prayed that Erica had simply fallen into a ditch, and knocked herself out. It wouldn't be the first time. A surprise attack by putties once caused her to run smack into a tree, and get entombed in a ball of goo by a monster. Advancing carefully, Jason noticed a sick feeling creeping in with the fear in the pit of his stomach. It was the one he used to get right before a monster attack. Closing in on the northeast pasture, he peered around through the dense foliage. Keeping his eyes peeled, he watched for the slightest bit of movement. The last thing he needed was a bunch of goons materializing, and trying to kick his ass. Pushing through the thicket, he emerged in the middle of the stand.

"Erica!"

The physician's voice echoed and reechoed around him. There was no sign of her, save the faint aroma of Marlboros. If she was there, she would have answered him. Reaching out with his own mind, he continued to listen for her response. Erica was a long-range telepath, she would be able to hear him, unless she was unconscious or suppressed. If it were the latter, there would have been a firefight, but in the last minutes of their connection he saw something strange.

Erica had seen _him_ running towards her, before the Link cutoff. It was possible that whatever she encountered had assumed his form, causing her to drop her guard. Best case scenario, it was a superimposed memory due to emotional shock. Yet, Jason couldn't shake the feeling that it wasn't. Looking about, he stared wistfully at the lights of the house, and the flashlight trails of the younger rangers. They were still playing their game, unaware of what was happening just north of their position. Earlier, plans had been made for an emergency meeting of the core command. That afternoon Zack got a hold of something that would blow the Inner Circle wide open. To avoid alerting the Dark Shaa'drick, he opted for a face-to-face meeting guised as a late dinner. Jason was sure he had a pretty good idea what it was, but it was overshadowed by information he was unable to share until now.

One of them was turned.

In 2000, David True Heart had died from injuries sustained by a fall during a bull-riding competition. It had caused an inquest, once the human coroner ruled that the cause of death was a broken neck. For a Shaa'drick, the injury was no more serious than a twisted ankle. A more thorough examination revealed foul play. David had died from ingesting the fruit of a honeydew melon, which was toxic. The minute everyone got the news, their first thought was murder. Typically, Shaa'drick could smell whether or not a substance was poisonous, medicinal, or nutritional. If they ran into a scentless plant, animal, or substance they avoided it since encounters with such things were almost always fatal.

There was no way David had knowingly imbibed the substance, and since he couldn't smell or taste it there was no way he would have known it was there. Someone had deliberately poisoned him, and Tommy's crash at Daytona revealed the motive. At the exact moment his older brother collapsed, the parasite imbedded in the back of his skull tried to take control. Unfortunately, it was still too damaged, and they both passed out causing the younger man to hit the wall at over a hundred miles an hour. If that hadn't have happened, the Inner Circle would have lost their hold on him.

David had been coordinating their first attempt at Purging his younger brother, but after his death the Shaa'drick pulled back. It took fifteen years to arrange a second one, and this time with the condition that only the core command rangers were involved. At first, Jason thought the stipulation was strange until they succeeded in getting Tommy treated. It confirmed the Shaa'drick's suspicion that the Circle had a mole, and that –

"…_one of you is not what they seem."_

The warning echoed and reechoed in his mind. Zordon must have known which of them was compromised, adding a new depth to the events leading up to his capture by Dark Specter. It was hard for Jason to wrap his mind around the fact that one of them had orchestrated an assassination attempt. Yet, there it was. In the back of his mind, it made sense, but he wasn't ready to go there. Not yet. Doing so would lead to unpleasant considerations. Depending on how far the parasite had invaded, they would have to kill one of their own. At best, it was mimicking the host through a careful manipulation of their consciousness. At worse, they were dealing with a full-fledged Skinwalker. Even a human one was deadly, and Jason had no idea how much they had shared with the Circle.

It bought him back to the thought he had earlier, about things coming to a head. For all he knew, the situation with Erica was the beginning of a final assault. If it was, they were as good as dead. Berating himself for not bringing the others with him, he wondered about their fate. Right before he went out to take care of his animals, Zack had texted him. At the time, the senior rangers were a good thirty minutes away. Jason had no way of knowing how much time had passed, but it was a safe bet that they hadn't reached the property. To make matters worse, he had no idea what they were riding into.

Looking about, he caught a fleeting glance of what looked like one of his cows standing in the shadow of one of the trees. If Erica had been hit by a spooked cow, it would have caused a superimposed memory of him running towards her. Hoping that she had simply been kicked by a frightened heifer, he made for the animal when an unseen force made him stop. The sensation in his body was overwhelming, his skin electric as the yellow eyes of a large creature peered down at him from its perch in the closest tree.

"_Holy shit…what the hell is that?"_

Whatever it was, it sat a mere twenty feet off the ground. Because of the poor lighting, Jason couldn't see any of its body. The only indication of its presence was the penetrating gold light of its unblinking eyes. Immediately, he regretted not grabbing the shotgun propped next to the front door. It was loaded with slugs made from amalgam, the substance lethal to Skinwalkers, and sorely missed as he crouched low in the tangled grass. As luck would have it, he managed to put his weight down on a dry twig.

"_Shit!"_

The crack rang out like a report. Instantly, the eyes disappeared like a light being turned out, and Jason heard the ominous 'thud' of something landing on the ground. Scrambling backwards, he turned tail, and ran. Whatever the hell that thing was, he wasn't taking it on without backup. Racing back to the house, he glanced wildly over his shoulder to see whether or not the large beast was following him. Having been chased by monsters multiple times throughout his life, he knew that anything that big would have been heard for miles. Unless it had the ability to teleport, and Jason didn't want to go there. Not yet. Not until it was staring down at him with those big yellow eyes.

"_Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!"_

Following the inner curve of the ridge, he searched for any sight or sound of the thing as he jogged around an old horse pen. Jumping a low fence, he ran into one of the corrals. The cows were huddled together in a circle, next to a water trough. Gasping, he struggled to catch his breath wondering how they had managed to get out when he looked up.

"_Oh…my…God…"_

Jason stared up at the charcoal sky, slack-jawed and wide-eyed. There was a ship the size of several football fields hovering directly overhead. It was only a hundred feet off the ground, and completely silent. Shocked, he watched the massive craft drift over to the farmhouse. As it closed in the surrounding security lights flickered, dimmed, and ultimately went out. The bulbs emitting loud 'pops' as they systematically blew out. Angling itself so that it was directly over the roof, the object began emitting a deep hum.

The sound snapped Jason out of his stupor. Immediately, he thought of the Dino, Samurai, and Wild Force rangers who were still playing in the woods. Shame, Cameron, and Cole had turned up right after Erica went on her walk. Judging by the bouncing pinpoints of yellow light, they were still unaware of the current situation despite having an enormous UFO directly overhead. If the kids were clueless, that meant there was no one heading back to check on Tommy. Not only that, there was some kind of yellow-eyed monster roaming around the ranch. Trotting towards the house, he skidded to a stop as several intense bursts of blue light lit up the far end of the driveway. From the looks if it, they were up near the highway turnoff. For a second, he didn't know what it was until he saw several red pinpoints of light fly up into the air.

It was the orbs!

Someone or something had engaged them, and was apparently taking them out. Three of the escapees flashed and dropped, but for there to be that many drones –

"_Impossible."_

There was only one thing that could generate the deadly spheres, and what was likely a chimera. Crossing the front yard, he wondered if this was what Zordon was trying to warn them about when a furry mass knocked him off his feet. Rambo, the mangy sheepdog mutt Erica kept as a pet, raced past him, and began digging madly at the underside of a nearby pile of plywood. The animal attempting to burrow under the pile, in between barking savagely at something on the porch. Rising up on his elbows, he looked up just in time to see the front door slam itself shut.

Whatever was in the ship was now in the house.

Scrambling to his feet, Jason ran towards the back. Kicking at the sliding glass door, he struggled to open it. In the background, he could hear startled shouts, backed with bursts of gunfire. One of the kids had been attacked, possibly by the chimera, but from the sounds of it they were holding their own. Good, because there was nothing he could do for them. Forcing the clear panel back on its track, he darted inside, and crouched behind the kitchen table. There was nothing in the kitchen or living room, or in the area near the front door. Inching forward, he paused as a familiar rush of energy raced up his spine. According to Billy, the morphing grid was experiencing unusual fluctuations that were concentrating into familiar patterns. Everyone was experiencing random morphs, but as he crept through the darkened house the familiar pulse of the multidimensional wave intensified. It meant he was reconnected to the grid, and it made him think of the bursts of light in the driveway.

"_I wonder…"_ Standing up, Jason called out the familiar command -

"It's morphing time, Tyrannosaur!"

Immediately, his suit enveloped him, along with the confidence of a seasoned warrior. Now, he had the advantage. Summoning his power sword, he advanced up the stairs, and sidled up next to the wall outside of Tommy's bedroom. The door was open, and the room pitch-black save a myriad of rainbow lights dancing across the walls and floor. Looking about, he failed to pinpoint the source, but it was a safe bet they were coming from the ship. Peering around the corner, he could see the younger man lying in bed asleep. Darting into the room, he quickly checked on him.

Tommy lay on his side, curled around a pillow atop his comforter. A pulse hammered steadily in the veins of his neck, and kept time with the gentle rise and fall of his chest. A thin film of moisture covered his skin, courtesy of the inflammation in his damaged leg. It was the reason why he was still losing weight. The black Dino ranger was now an even two-hundred pounds. When everything started, he was nearly two ninety-five. If it continued, he would be malnourished by the end of the week. They needed to do something, yet that would have to wait. At the moment, there was a giant spaceship hovering over his best friend's house, and painting crazy rainbow lights on the wall.

Letting out a sigh of relief that, for the most part, Tommy was alright he turned to check the bathroom, and nearly jumped out of his skin. Erica was standing at the foot of his bed. For a split-second, Jason thought about running over, and wrapping his arms around her when he noticed she wasn't right. Both hands were over her face, and he could see the heavy black lines of her natural marks running down the back of them.

"_What the…"_ The physician watched as the bedroom door swung shut, and locked itself. Turning back to Erica, the air was pulled from his chest as a being unlike anything he'd ever seen before materialized out of the darkness. Whatever it was it had no discernible features, just a lean body clad in a tight-fitting material that gave way to a long grey skirt. On either side of the ridge of what he guessed as its nose were three glowing blue holes angled inwards like a 'v'. As it closed the gap between them, Jason got the impression that it was female, and for a second they just stared at one another until an invisible force pushed him to the floor.

Struggling, he tried to get up when an intense pressure in the back of his skull left him immobile. Gasping, he tried to fight back using the techniques Zordon had taught them for resisting a telepathic assault, but whatever it was it was too strong. Despite the intense panic rising in his chest, his body relaxed into a pliable mess. Collapsing, he felt his power suit dematerialize as the world began to fade into the voice of that deep presence in the back of his mind –

"…_don't worry it'll all be over soon…"_


End file.
